Priorities & Initiatives

NorthInvest aims to develop a well-constructed funding ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the North of England. While we support tech and digital start-ups across the board, we offer enhanced support for businesses striving to create a positive social or environmental impact, and encourage our investors to consider the wider benefits of impact investing. We work with some of Europe's leading VCs to facilitate funding to tech for good start-ups.

Fund Her North

We're proud to announce that from our Angels of the North: Female Founders & Investors community NorthInvest co-founded Fund Her North in 2020. Fund Her North is a collective of over 28 women with combined investment power over £450m in the North to support women entrepreneurs seeking investment.

Events include pitch event co-hosted by NorthInvest and GC Angels, as well as entrepreneur events discussing the investment landscape for start-ups and scale-ups. Guest speakers included: Dragon's Den 'Dragon' Sara Davies; Director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership Henri Murison; ClearlySo and Bluebella NED Tracy Lewis; and CEO of Culture Shift, Gemma McCall.

Fund Her North use a different fee model to NorthInvest, charging a 5% success fee to the start-up. Pitch events are held quarterly with 6 participating start-ups. These events are public. For more information, please visit the Fund Her North website.

To apply for a Fund Her North pitch event, please complete our online investment application form and our Investment Directors will contact you regarding your eligibility.

Tech for Good

We are a not for profit and our ethos is to have a positive impact on the investment ecosystem and society more widely.

We do this in three ways:

Support the northern powerhouse economy
Increase diversity, especially gender balance
Facilitate capital investments in companies that have a positive impact on society, underserved communities and the environment, whilst aiming to make a financial return (profit for purpose)

We aim to be the place to go in the north of England to gain access to funding for tech for good/impact investments, for entrepreneurs and investors.

We define an impact investment as a technology company that is having a measurable impact on our world by:

Environmental impact eg reducing plastic waste
Societal impact eg managing personal debt
Addressing underserved communities eg building a community for a specific condition

We work with companies who are looking for capital investment to make the world a better place, at the same time as giving a financial return.
We don’t directly support charities and those who are not for profit, but would be happy to signpost you to organisations who can
We work with many companies who are not an impact investment, but still contribute to our economy – see xxx page – we don’t badge them as impact investments though

How we can help:

Facilitating capital investment from our network of angel investors and early-stage funds
Coaching & preparation of pitch deck & pitch
Connecting you to other funding organisations
Workshops to help develop your company, partnering with experts

NorthInvest Scale Up Senate

NorthInvest established the NorthInvest Scale Up Senate to support innovative digital and tech businesses following an initial investment, and help them effectively scale their business. For many organisations, both public and private, the COVID-19 crisis challenges companies to “build back better”. However, start-ups already face significant challenges following an initial period of funding to generate steady revenues in order to break even or progress to the next significant funding round. This is often due to a lack of customer and client awareness and support during the scaling process.

The NorthInvest Scale Up Senate programme offers this crucial guidance and access to experts, local business leaders and entrepreneurs for scale ups to direct their growth. The programme will culminate in a quarterly NorthInvest Senate Scale Up event that gives direct access to business leaders, with a personalised scale up action plan and exposure to high profile clients. Selected businesses are invited to take part in this programme.

Regional Angel Investment Accelerator (RAIA) Programme

The Northern Angel Hub has launched as one of three Angel Investment Accelerator Pilot programmes, funded by Innovate UK.

In 2019, NorthInvest was awarded co-management of £1m fund from Innovate UK as part of this Accelerator Programme led by the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) and Innovation SuperNetwork in partnership with the UK British Angels Association. This fund is to encourage Business Angels in the region to bring investment and expertise to pioneering innovative small and medium companies across the North East, Yorkshire and North West.

We are now accepting applications for this accelerator programme for innovative projects:

With costs between £40k – £300k
Last 12 months
Based in the North East, Yorkshire, or North West of England.

To apply, please complete our online investment application form and our Investment Director, Jordan Dargue, will consider your application for the RAIA programme.